


Experiential Learning

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [17]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Gen, brothers being brothers, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23493478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Tup has a mission.  Tup knows he will fail it.  That's just what he does.(Inspired by that one throwaway line in Bajur about making shinies go shopping)
Relationships: CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 & CT-5385 | Tup
Series: Soft Wars [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 44
Kudos: 825





	Experiential Learning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Art Of Bajur](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23459539) by [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506). 



> Why? Because have you seen his cute man bun? That's why.

“Do you want to be in charge?” Tup tugs on his sleeves and fidgets with his buttons. Civilian clothes are _complicated_ and uncomfortable. Why do they need so many layers if none of them are going to be an actual shell? This stuff wouldn’t stop a bad idea, much less a blaster bolt. “I know what the Captain said-”

“And the Captain knows what he’s doing,” Fives interrupts.

“And the Captain knows what he’s doing,” Tup agrees, easily. “But you think maybe, this one time, if you want…”

Fives stares him down, amicable, polite, unyielding. He’s going to make Tup say it.

“It’s just.” Tup groans. “He wouldn’t ever have to know?”

Fives’ stare becomes sardonic. Tup sighs; he’s right. “He’d know,” Tup mutters. “He probably already knows I tried to ask. He probably already planned for that and has a hundred contingencies.”

“Steady, vod, your love of authority is showing.” Tup gives Fives the dirty look this deserves.

The commercial center looms huge and intimidating around them. Countless species buzz up and down, back and forth across hundreds of levels of shopping facilities. The center ground level is dominated by a massive water feature that serves no other purpose than to exist. There’s a giant hologram with a grinning wookie displaying a countdown to Lifeday.

Tup obviously, distinctly does not belong here.

“I can’t do this,” he realizes. Tup has never been blind to his faults.

“You can,” Fives replies. It’s said simply, a statement of fact. “Captain Rex wouldn’t have assigned you to this if he thought you couldn’t hack it.”

“Assigned _us_ , probably because he knows _I can’t do this_.” Tup paces an agitated little circle, before having to dodge a harried Selonian herding a terrifying number of younglings. “You be mission lead. I can. I can maybe carry the bags. Yeah,” he mutters bitterly. “That’s about all I’m qualified for.”

He can see Fives watching him out of the corner of his eye, waiting for something. Tup to take it back, maybe. But it’s true. He’s sorry to be a disappointment, but by this point everyone should be used to it.

Eventually Fives sighs. Tup can’t help the way his shoulders inch up at the sound. “Okay,” he says, and not like he was annoyed or disappointed or anything.

“Okay?” Tup echos warily.

“Okay,” Fives confirms. “I’m assigned to this as contingency. And if the Mission Lead thinks we need to go to contingency, then that’s what we do. So, Mission Lead? Are we in contingency?”

“That’s not fair,” Tup says. It’s the first time he’s said it, but far from the first time he’s thought so. Everyone, _everyone_ knows that Tup isn’t good at… at being the one in charge, making decisions, making plans. Leading. Tup’s a follower. _Everyone knows it_. He doesn’t know what’s _wrong_ with the Captain, and now with Fives, to think he can do it. “I can’t, you know I can’t.”

“And that’s fine, that’s why I’m your backup. But that’s your call. You have to make it.”

Tup clenches his teeth and shakes his head hard. His breathing is ragged, his hands clenching and unclenching in his _utterly pointless_ gloves and it’s absolutely pathetic that he can’t manage even the most basic of things. He can’t even manage to decide on _making someone else the decision maker_.

“Why did you even think I could do this?” He challenges, bitter.

“Because we’ve all gone through the same training? It’s literally a mission Tup even if it’s low stakes, you’ve done hundreds of sims.”

“Dozens,” he corrects. Everyone knows with how the war is going, training standards on Kamino are slipping. These days there’s no chance that any of the new batches could ever produce a Captain Rex.

“Dozens,” Fives accepts with a wrinkled nose. Tup knows what that means. It means Fives is going to report how under-trained Tup and his cohort are, Captain Rex is going to have to waste his time making sims for them to get them up to passable.

“Point is you’ve _done this_ , Tup. And no one is even shooting sim rounds at you.” Funny, Tup would prefer that.

“This isn’t anything like a sim,” Tup argues. “I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going. I don’t know anything!”

“You got the same brief as me. You know exactly what you’re looking for.”

“But not where to find it. How to get to it. What I’m supposed to do when I find it.”

This time Fives’ stare is hard. ‘Figure it out,’ that stare says. Captain Rex has the same one.

The other new troopers say he’s ARC material, that Captain Rex is running him and Echo harder than anyone for that very reason. Tup believes it. Fives is from one of those batches that could still produce quality.

“I don’t know the terrain,” Tup eventually manages. “I’m not suited-”

“Then how do you fix that?” Fives asks, voice and face trainer-calm. Like he thinks Tup knows the answer.

“ _I don’t know!_ ”

Fives face doesn’t flicker. He won’t accept that.

“Try again.”

“ _I don’t-_ ”

“Stop.”

Tup gulps a breath. Two. It feels like his lungs will never be full again. He feels like he can’t ever look away from the pale, shiny tiles spanning the floor.

“I’m going to ask you a couple of questions Tup. And you’re not going to answer me. You’re going to think about each individual word, and then each pair of words, and you’re going to keep doing that until you parse the entire question. And then you’re gonna ask yourself the questions in a way that makes sense to you. That’s all you need to do. Understood?”

Tup bobs his head.

“You don’t know the terrain. How do you fix that?”

He lets the words roll through him, rumbling in and out of coherence.

“You don’t understand local customs. How do you fix that?”

His breathing is harsh in his ear. At some point, somehow, Fives has backed him into a corner. Out of the way, good he’s not being a bother to other people. And Fives is so broad, built broader than Tup with all the extra training he’s doing. Tup can barely see anyone else around him. That’s. That’s better. He can pretend they’re not there. Just him, and Fives, expecting the impossible.

“How do I find out what the terrain’s like,” he asks and he knows the answer. “How do I learn the local customs.” He breathes a shaky laugh. “I observe,” he answers. “I ask a local. I look at a _karking map_.”

Fives smiles. It’s a little proud, a little sly. It’s a really nice smile.

“There you are,” he says, as if he’d always known. “There you go.” The hold he has on each of Tup’s elbows feel like the only thing keeping him grounded. Tup laughs again, a little watery.

“I’m a mess,” he tells Fives, even though he should already know that. Fives taps their heads together.

“A little bit,” Fives agrees. He’s never been one lie, Tup knows. “But we all started out that way. Captain’s gotten real good at fixing that. Just let him do his job.”

Tup nods.

Five gives him a minute or two more, just til Tup doesn’t feel like he’s breathing like an eopie run hard, and steps back.

“You have this,” he says firmly.

“I really don’t,” Tup denies automatically, but straightens anyway. The Captain’s trainings are always hard, but Tup always feels stronger after. So. Tup will try.

“Mall directory’s that big black thing by the spouter,” Fives offers, a mercy, one answer to the many ways Tup is out of his depth. Tup bobbles his head in a nod. “And I’m right here.”

Tup grabs the (pointless, excess, _why_ ) drooping fabric at the wrist of Fives’ civvie sleeve in a death grip. Fives and the Captain think he can do this.

He marches grimly toward the map. He has droid starter kits to find.


End file.
